"Everyone please calm down!" Shen Rui shouted until his throat burned, but it didn't help. Turmoil had swallowed the marketplace. People shoved, screamed, and ran in every direction, trampling each other.
He'd thought the city guards would come. They always did when things turned ugly.
Instead, they'd vanished.
Worse, cultivators were using the panic as cover to do whatever they wanted.
"Let go of me!" A woman screamed as she was dragged through the crowd. She fought hard enough that her hairpin snapped loose, and flower baskets scattered across the ground as people stepped over them without looking.
Shen Rui recognized the man hauling her away. A cultivator. One with a filthy reputation, the kind who took what he wanted first, then sold what remained to slave traders.
"So fierce," the man laughed, tightening his grip. "I wonder if you'll still keep that face later."
People averted their eyes. No one wanted to be the next target. The woman's pleading gaze swept the crowd, searching for anyone who'd meet it, and as she found only lowered heads, something in her expression dimmed.
"Stop right there!"
The woman twisted around, hope flaring in her eyes, then faltering when she saw who'd spoken. A guard in iron armor. A mortal like her.
Shen Rui knew the gap between mortals and cultivators. But his mouth had already moved, and now there was no taking it back. He drew his sword anyway and leveled it at the man.
The cultivator vanished.
Shen Rui barely registered the blur before a fist slammed into his stomach. The impact folded him in half and sent him flying into a wall. He hit stone, slid, and coughed up blood mixed with chunks of of his organs.
"Ha? I didn't hear you. Could you repeat what you just said?"
Shen Rui trembled, pain and humiliation burning together. He forced himself up, using his sword to steady his legs. If he was going to die, he'd at least leave a mark and lunged with what little energy was left in his body.
The cultivator snickered, already stepping in to finish him, Shen Rui seeming nothing but a nuisance to him. The woman seeing his attention diverted, used that moment to vanish into the crowd, praying without looking back.
Shen Rui swung, pouring everything into the cut.
A talisman shield flared around the cultivator, and a sound like silk ripping cut through the air.
The shield shattered, and the cultivator's body split cleanly in two. His upper half tilted, eyes wide and blank, as if his mind couldn't catch up. Then both halves slid apart and fell.
Shen Rui stared, stunned, sword still raised. The crowd stared with him. Some even looked at Shen Rui as if he'd revealed himself as a hidden expert.
Then someone shouted from above, snapping every head toward a nearby roof.
"Everyone listen to me!" a purple-haired girl called out, standing where all could see. "I'm Yue Rin, and I'm here to restore order and help everyone reach safety. Those who don't follow my orders will face consequences! First-"
"Hey!" A cultivator weighed down by bulging bags pushed forward, sneering up at her. "What are you spouting about helping others? I can tell from here you're just a mere mortal, yet you dare order us around, acting like a city guard? you should be worrying about yourself first young lady." He licked his lips as his eyes roamed across Yue Rin's body.
Murmurs rippled through the crowd. Some looked at Yue Rin like she was insane.
Yue Rin only smiled and turned her gaze on him. "You're right. I am a mortal." Her eyes dropped to his bags. "But you've robbed quite a lot, haven't you?"
She raised her voice, pointing straight at him. "Your punishment is to have both hands chopped off!"
The cultivator barked a laugh. "And how are you going to-"
A breeze passed.
Heavy bags thudded to the ground.
The cultivator froze, staring down at his wrists as blood began to pour. His hands lay on the dirt a step away, still curled around the straps they'd been clutching.
Pain made him let out a scream, collapsing, and the crowd recoiled in horror.
Even other cultivators hadn't seen the strike. They'd only felt something brush past them.
Eyes snapped to Yue Rin, then past her.
A man stood near the roofline, quiet and unremarkable until now, blood dripping from his sword.
Yue Rin let the silence settle, then spoke again. "Everyone, this is Elder Cui Zheng, manager of the Rouge Alliance Pavilion. He will be the one helping me restore order. Anyone who refuses can bear what comes to them."
No one dared speak. No one dared move.
Even Shen Rui, shaken by what he'd just witnessed, felt fear, but also relief. Someone had finally taken charge.
"Elder Cui Zheng was kind enough to donate a large number of tents, we've set them up outside the northern gate. Head there, guards will be waiting to guide you and your loved ones into shelter while everything settles."
She is still surprised by how Cui Zheng had produced those tents from his ring like it was nothing, making her have a dozen questions, but she swallowed them. This wasn't the right time.
A hand suddenly rose from the crowd.
Yue Rin nodded toward it. "Do you have a question?"
The voice that answered made her feel a strange nostalgia. It was the manager of the tavern she used to go to. It hadn't been long, and yet it already felt like another life.
Unnoticed by her, the manager gave Cui Zheng a small nod, and Cui Zheng nodded back.
"Miss Yue Rin, we're only in the capital, and there are other cities too. What about them?"
"Elder Cui Zheng will fly out and help restore order, he'll also direct guards to evacuate people where needed."
The man didn't press her on that. Instead, he asked the question that mattered. "Miss Yue Rin, not to be rude, but if Elder Cui Zheng is flying around and you're stationed at the northern gate, who handles trouble there if it erupts?"
Yue Rin's mouth opened.
No answer came.
She hadn't thought that far.
The man's tone stayed humble, but his offer landed clean. "Miss Yue Rin, I am Zhou Wenqi, manager of Twin Peaks, though I dare not speak highly of myself. I can help you hold the gate. And you'll have trouble feeding so many people. I can lend a hand in that as well."
It sounded too perfect. Security and food, offered in the middle of disaster.
Yue Rin turned to Cui Zheng, who hadn't spoken once, yet whose presence alone made the crowd feel smaller.
"You can trust him."
Yue Rin blinked. Even Zhou Wenqi's eyebrows rose at that.
If Cui Zheng vouched for him, Yue Rin had no excuse left. She bowed her head slightly. "Then I thank you for the help, Senior Zhou."
She turned back to the crowd, raising her voice. "Carry the word. Tell everyone to evacuate to the northern gate. You'll find shelter and food there!"
Cui Zheng made his sword hover on the ground, letting Yue Rin step on it before they shot toward the gate in a streak of light.
Zhou Wenqi chose to walk instead, a playful glint in his eyes that didn't match the smoke and screams around them.
* * * *
After dropping Yue Rin and waiting until he saw Zhou Wenqi arrive, Cui Zheng rose again.
He moved through the streets with the cold efficiency of a Discipline Hall elder. He killed the truly dangerous without hesitation, and for those who were robbing or harming others, he cut hands and moved on. He couldn't help thinking Yue Rin's punishments fit the crimes almost too well.
By then, the battle in the sky seemed to have faded. Cui Zheng couldn't spot any Verdant Pine elders. He assumed they'd withdrawn and headed toward the battlefield to see what remained.
The moment he drew close, a sense of danger welled up inside him, sudden and instinctive, like an animal's warning before a trap snaps shut.
He rose higher.
In the center of a plaza below, a dark red spear was impaled in the stone, bleeding demonic Qi into the air, bodies lay scattered around it.
He circled once, then turned away, dropping toward the nearest guard line.
"Don't let anyone near that plaza, If they insist, bind them."
Guards nodded, faces pale.
Cui Zheng moved on, carrying the warning from street to street, forcing distance, setting cordons wherever he could.
He didn't notice the demonic Qi continuing to slowly spread.